National Politics: Election 1940

NATIONAL POLITICS: ELECTION 1940

Domestic Issues

Roosevelt was vulnerable on economic issues. Despite New Deal efforts such as social security, a fair-labor act, unemployment insurance, and public housing, government spending had not adequately "primed" the economic pump. The economic slump of the late 1930s was dubbed the "Roosevelt recession." Though unemployment was down from the catastrophic 25 percent rate of the year Roosevelt took office, it had edged up to nearly 15 percent by 1938. Members of Roosevelt's own party thought the New Deal went too far in redistributing wealth, and many disapproved of his efforts to stack the Supreme Court to win approval of his programs. Roosevelt's attempted purge of conservative Democrats in 1938 left his right flank exposed.

A Foreign Policy Coup

Roosevelt had already begun to undercut Republican challenges when he appointed Republican stalwarts Henry L. Stimson as secretary of war and Frank Knox as secretary of the navy only four days before the Republican National Convention, ostensibly in a gesture toward bipartisanship in foreign policy. Though Republicans tended to be isolationist, they constantly criticized what they called Roosevelt's negligence of national defense. Stimson had been secretary of state under President Herbert Hoover, and Knox was a retired army colonel. Better appointments than these could not have been found by any Republican candidate. The Republican National Committee was so angry at Stimson and Knox that its chairman sought to banish them from the party. As usual, the president was being shrewd, sending a message that he, better than any other politician, could judge talent and exercise leadership. As he emphasized in his nationally broadcast nomination speech, the nation needed his experience more than ever: "If our Government should pass to other hands next January—untried hands, inexperienced hands—we can merely hope and pray that they will not substitute appeasement and compromise with those who seek to destroy all democracies everywhere, including here."

The Republicans Attempt To Play the Labor Card

Emphasizing the failure of the New Deal to create jobs, Willkie made a play for backing from labor. He reiterated his support for all the gains labor had made throughout the turbulent 1930s, upholding the right of collective bargaining and promising to strengthen Social Security. Roosevelt's old rival, John L. Lewis of the CIO, endorsed Willkie. Yet Willkie seriously alienated potential allies in the labor movement when he promised that his new secretary of labor "won't be a woman." This slap at Roosevelt's labor secretary, Frances Perkins, enraged labor and women alike. Roosevelt's rank-and-file support was immense. He continued to attack business monopoly and point to American poverty, promising that government would guarantee labor "a fair share of the national income."

House	76th Congress	77th Congress	Gain/ Loss
Democrats	261	268	+7
Republicans	164	162	−2
Independents	4	5	+1

Senate	76th Congress	77th Congress	Gain/ Loss
Democrats	69	66	−3
Republicans	23	28	+5
Independents	4	2	−2

Willkie Outgunned

Promising an even newer New Deal, Willkie was running as the candidate of an essentially conservative party. Many Republicans saw him as an interloper and an amateur. But his main weakness was that he could not compete with the commander in chief. Roosevelt declined to debate Willkie but allowed his associates to attack him freely. The irrepressible Ickes lampooned Willkie's Hoosier and legal background by calling him "a simple barefoot Wall Street lawyer." Meanwhile, the president acted presidential, seeking and obtaining an unprecedented $11.5-billion defense budget from Congress. When Roosevelt sought Willkie's support for his Selective Service bill, he did not get it. (Willkie's running mate voted for it, though Taft and Vandenberg did not.) In September, when the president announced the destroyers-for-bases deal with England, Willkie called it "the most arbitrary and dictatorial action ever taken by any president in the history of the United States." Though Gallup poll numbers had been promising for Willkie in August, by September the new figures indicated he was heading for defeat. Willkie had attacked what he termed a slow defense buildup; yet unemployment was decreasing as weapons production increased. Labeling Roosevelt the candidate of the pro-Nazi elements, Willkie called the president an isolationist and said that he had "telephoned Mussolini and Hitler and urged them to sell Czechoslovakia down the river at Munich." While his press secretary quickly asserted that the Republican had "misspoken," the damage was done. Willkie then contradicted himself and called Roosevelt a warmonger. Willkie promised that if he were elected, "our boys shall stay out of European wars," The mood of the electorate warranted such talk, and Roosevelt said essentially the same thing. Yet as election day approached, and war seemed more and more imminent, the voters seemed to agree with Mayor Fiorelio La Guardia of New York, who said he preferred "Roosevelt with his known faults to Willkie with his unknown virtues." Though Willkie lost by nearly 5 million votes, and won only 82 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 449, he made a considerably better showing against Roosevelt than any other Republican and pointed up where the Democrats were vulnerable.

Sources:

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, 3 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956-1960);

Schlesinger, ed., The History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968 (New York: Chelsea House, 1971);

Schlesinger, ed., History of U.S. Political Parties (New York: Chelsea House, 1973).